2 Chainz has revisited the time he worked with Eminem, explaining how some weed almost nixed his chance of a collab with the superstar rapper.
Talking to Shannon Sharpe for a special car version of Club Shay Shay, the artist formerly known as Tity Boi reflected on his time recording with Em, although he didn’t specify which track they were working on at the time.
“When I did work with Eminem, I couldn’t smoke in there,” 2 Chainz told Sharpe. “It was kinda funny. It was his people, not Eminem. Eminem was somewhere writing but his people are just so concerned with him, they put the speakers outside so I could listen to the beat.”
He continued: “It’s a beautiful day in Malibu, I’m just smoking. I come back in to do my verse and the door’s closed and I’m in the booth smoking and I see Em out there and I’m like, ‘He in there while I’m recording, that’s hard.’ He’s about to come in and say something but his people are like, ‘No! Don’t go in there, he’s smoking.’ Em looks like, ‘Sit the fuck down, what do you think I’m about to do?’ I remember them trippin’ on him and he was not trippin’ at all.”
Eminem has been publicly sober since 2008. Back in 2022, the rapper opened up about his former drug use in a personal essay for XXL. “My addiction didn’t start in my early days when I was coming up,” he explained. “My drug usage started at the beginning of that first album.”
“I didn’t take anything hard until I got famous,” he continued. “I was experimenting. I hadn’t found a drug of choice. Back then, you went on tour and people were just giving you free drugs. I managed it for a little while. And then, it just became, I like this shit too much and I don’t know how to stop.”
Eminem admitted in his essay that his drug use got worse in 2006 after the death of his friend, Proof. “I literally couldn’t walk for two days when that happened and eventually my drug use fuckin’ skyrocketed,” Eminem recalled. “I had fuckin’ 10 drug dealers at one time that I’m getting my shit from. Seventy-five to 80 Valiums a night, which is a lot. I don’t know how the fuck I’m still here.”
During an interview with the Paul Pod podcast in 2022, Eminem explained how it felt when he finally got sober. “I remember when I first got sober and all the shit was out of my system,” he said. “I remember just being, like, really happy and everything was fucking new to me again.”
